Craig Woods feels like he’s back where he belongs. Chances are, Hartford basketball fans are in full agreement.
Woods was at Hartford two years ago and played on the JV squad. Then, his mother got a job in Arizona, so Woods moved to Lebo to live with his father and attend Lebo High School.
“My truck got about eight miles a gallon, and I didn’t want to drive all the way back from Lebo to Hartford every day,” he said. “So I just went to Lebo.”
He played basketball for the Wolves last season but didn’t feel at home. Now, with his father having moved to Hartford, Woods is back in the Jaguar program, and the 6-foot-1 senior swingman is excelling in all phases of the game.
On a team that needed to replace Justin Farr, Storm Cartee and Cody Barrett, Woods has been outstanding in the Jags’ first handful of games, averaging 19 points per game and grabbing about eight rebounds per game. He put up 30 in last Friday’s win over Waverly, 25 in an overtime win over Madison and 21 in a victory over White City. Hartford is 4-1 this year, and it’s safe to say that Woods is not only good, but comfortable, too.
“Well, it’s all my friends here, pretty much — all my friends and teammates,” Woods said. “We’ve played together our whole lives, and we can think for each other, basically.”
Hartford coach Chuck Ewy knew coming into this year that Woods’ size and perimeter game would give him good opportunities to score.
“He was a good kid when he was playing on our JV team, and we saw a lot of potential there,” Ewy said. “And we were disappointed last year when he decided to give Lebo school a try.”
The questions Ewy had were about Woods’ all-around game. But he’s worked hard, Ewy said, and has done everything the coaching staff expected of him.
“Defensively, we put him on the other team’s best post player, and he’s done a real nice job defending the post, because he is one of our taller kids on our team,” Ewy said. “That’s one of those duties he has to perform. There’s times in our offense that he runs that three-guard for us, and he does a nice job of handling the ball.”
He’s already faced his old team twice: once in the Lebo round-robin tournament, a 68-64 win for the Wolves, and another trip to Lebo last week, when Hartford got a Logan Grieder 3-pointer in the final seconds to win 40-39. In the first game, Woods scored 16 points; in the second, he had just three, his only single-digit output thus far this year. He’s friends with old Wolves teammates Dylan Smith and Adam Laflin, but he says it hasn’t been weird going up against them.
“It’s actually a lot of fun,” he said. “It’s a big rival for me.”
Woods feels good about how the Jags have played so far. What’s most important to him, though, is that he’s back home.
“(Hartford) is where I need to be,” he said. “I’d rather play for them and have a losing season than play for a different team and have a winning season.”